Ahhhh Thanksgiving...

a day in which we come together as friends and family to remind ourselves of all the things we have to be thankful for.
A day full of dread, anxiety, and trepidation. Oh how I hate this holiday. Usually.....
Normally, for Thanksgiving, we go over to my mother's, or to my wife's mothers house. We do not usually stay long, because I start getting really antsy about all the noise and people milling about. Usually 4 hours is my limit before I start feeling like something is crushing my chest.
This year, we decided to join my brother-in-law and his family and friends.
This ended up being the largest Thanksgiving dinner I can ever recall attending.
However, it didnt go off like I expected at all.
I anticipated the worst, knowing that there would be no less than 17 people there. At on point, there was actually 21 people who attended.
I figured my limit would be 2 hours max, and we would probably end up leaving sooner, because my youngest, who is also autistic, would be begging the whole time, (which would only make things worse), to go home.
Didn't happen.
We arrives at a little after 3 and didn't leave until after 9. And then, only because my wife had to be up at 5 am to go to work.
My son didn't ask one time to return home. I didnt feel out of place, and only had one, "awkward moment". It was only so because as people were go about talking with each other, about four small, "pocket groups" formed, and I was unsure of which one I should try to move to. I ended up just picking one randomly, and that ended that.
No one talked down to me, or treated me differently. No one made me feel unwelcome.
What makes this so impressive, is that these people, most of them, I barely know. None were complete strangers, but you could not say I was close to any of them, save my brother-in-law.
So what did I learn from this? What do I have to be thankful for.......I thankful because, sometimes I am wrong!

I hate this question too!

On his blog, fellow Aspergarian, Gavin Bollard posted an article about the question, "How was your day?" You can find the article he wrote here. You will also find a link there to the article that originally spawned both Gavin's article as well as my own.
I used to wondered how people knew what the appropriate response to that question is?
As I got older, I realized that most people didn't really care, it was merely a "formality".
Unfortunately, sometimes, people really do want to know. It is at this point when it really becomes an issue.
Just like in the other two articles, I see that you are asking me to provide a specific answer to an open ended question. Not only is that question vague in and of itself, but now I must deduce what type of answer you seek.
It could be you are asking about my emotion state of being, or perhaps you wish to know if I am physically doing well. Perhaps you are trying to determine my mental capabilities at the moment, and if they are up to par with my "usual" capabilities. Maybe, you are asking for a sum of the above the equations, (I really hope not, because then I am going to have to go thru my day three times to access how I am doing emotionally, mentally, and physically, and then divide them in to group of positive and negative effects, and put them on a "mental scale" to see how the balance tips so I can tell you the truth. This could take a hour depending on how many events occurred through out my day).
It seems to me, that NT's have this "magical ability" to continually keep and emotional, mental, and physical tally of events and sum them up rather efficiently.
I wish I could do that, but I cannot.
In fact, often times, I am not aware of my, "conditions", unless I am asked how my day was. Up until that point, it was just another day. But by making me reflect upon the events of the day, I realize that I had several events that caused me frustration and therefore I should be having a bad day.
At this point I become alarmed because I realize that the "type" of day that I have had, and my emotional, mental, or physical "answer", do not add up. Something clearly must be wrong, so I must search thru my day yet again to find out if I have missed something to change the way I should be feeling to how I am actually feeling.
If I cannot find something that has caused this error to occur, I become frustrated.
Upon realizing that I am feeling frustrated, I realize that how my day actually was, and how I feel is now correct, and I feel relieved, which changes my outlook back to what it was before I started having a "bad day". So once again, something is wrong, but at this point, I choose not to dwell upon it further, because I already know I will not be able to find the answer within myself, and choose to just give up and let it go, as there is currently no solution available.
To me this question is a bad one, thankfully, as I said before, I don't usually have to dwell on it to much.
Another bad question for me, is when my friend asks me, "Are you feeling ok?"
Sigh.
Here we go again.

A Step in the Right Direction?

I came across this study yesterday. Not being a clinician of any sorts, I will not do more than offer my opinions on it, rather than make some attempt to extol or deny its merits.
You can find the article here. http://www.bangor.ac.uk/news/full.php?Id=181
Having said that, I did like the direction it took.
For myself, I have always had issues with my "sleep clock". Usually I sleep roughly 4-6 hour a night. This amount of sleep hasn't ever been a problem, as it leaves me with a lot more time in a day to get things done.
It does create a problem in that I rarely sleep at night. Every attempt to get myself on a schedule that keeps me up during the day time does not last, as I usually find myself back to sleeping during the daytime within a matter of no more than three days.
From everything I have read about Asperger's, sleep is an issue with most who have AS, I do not know if everyone is afflicted in the same way as I or not, but regardless the article does make some sense. While the article does make some sense, it does not hint in anyway towards an answer to preventing AS, I am curious if anyone else thinks it could be a step in the right direction?

A Must Read!!!

I just finished reading Tony Attwood's book, "The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome."
If you have, think you have, know someone who you think has, think you know someone who thinks they know someone who might know someone who is related to someones who is dating someone that might have Asperger's, or if you are currently breathing and not on life support, or in a coma, you really should read this book. (Disclaimer: I cannot be held liable for any injury sustained in repeating the above sentence 3 times real fast.)
Hmmm, I should contact Tony about getting paid to advertise..........
Anyways, I cannot tell you just how amazing this book is. The depth, the details, everything about it makes it a most wonderful "reference manual" for people who have AS, and even quite a bit of info on autism too.
He has written it in such a way that even a "normal person", (i.e; not a doctor or other genius type), can understand it easily, for the most part.
There are a few chapters that discuss the clinical aspect of things, and therefore do use some medical terminology.
It showed me so many things about myself, that I would have never thought had anything to do with AS.
It talked about issues that I dealt with as a child, that to me were what I thought to be normal.
It showed me how different my thinking was, (I always knew I thought differently, but not to this degree.)
For the first time in my life, I realize just how blind I am when it comes to social cues, and empathy issues.
All my life people have told me how weird I am, and after I got older, I asked my wife if she could tell me why I had problems keeping friends. I asked the few friends I had the same question. But no matter who I asked, no one seemed to be able to, "put a finger on it".
All they could tell me is that there is just something different about you. Sometimes they would attempt to give cause, like, "maybe how smart you are makes them feel threatened. In the end it still didnt really answer the question. Not because it didnt make sense, but because of the numbers, I guess.
You see, making friends has never been a "big" problem for me, it's keeping them.
Losing a couple because they feel threatened intellectually would make sense. Losing 97% of them after only a few weeks, or maybe months, that does not.
I never realized I had issues with empathy at all, and to be honest, I hesitate to use the word issue, simply because its misleading.
I have empathy.
If my wife, or one of my children is hurt, I do feel some level of distress, or discomfort over it. Its more about how I express empathy. That seems to be the real issue.
I am going to use an example from Tony's book to illustrate what I mean.
In the book, several children were asked a series of questions. This group was comprised of NT's and children with AS.
The first question asked was, "If you came home from school, and found your mother crying, what would you do?"
The first response from both groups of children is the same, "What's wrong?"
He then asks, "What could you do or say to make her feel better?"
I stopped reading at this point, to answer the question without knowing what the "proper answers" were.
My response was, "I would get her some tissues, leave her alone, or give her a hug depending upon the amount of sadness she was showing."
I then read the responses.
Typical children would offer words of support and/or encouragement to help cheer her up.
Children with AS preferred to offer a practical action, like getting some tea, offering tissues, talking about their, (the child's, not the mother's), special interest, or leaving her alone.
He then went on to add that occasionally, a child with AS would suggest a hug, but when asked why they would give the hug, their response was different.
Again, I stopped to formulate a response, which was, "That's what your supposed to do."
Proceeding to read on, it said, "that children with AS would usually respond with, "I dont know why, but that's what your supposed to do."
To use an NT expression, "You could have knocked me over with a feather".
Thirty six years of living, and if you would have asked me last week if my responses would be considered normal to an NT.........I most certainly would have believed so.
So again, if you really want to understand they way someone with AS thinks, or how different things might affect them, then don't hesitate, get this book.
If you only read ONE book about Asperger's, make sure that this is the one, you will not regret it.